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A review by thebooknerdscorner
How We Roll by Natasha Friend
3.0
A story about two ninth graders who have been through a bunch of changes in their life that form an unlikely friendship that features an overwhelming amount of diversity.
This book follows a young girl name Quinn who has a autoimmune disorder called alopecia, which causes the hair on her scalp to fall out. Ever since she developed this disorder, she's felt like an outsider. Now, she has a new chance to start over when her family moves to Gull's Head, Massachusetts. There, she meets a young boy named Nick who has lost both of his legs in a terrible snowmobiling accident. Against the odds, these two begin to develop a unique friendship filled with a deep understanding of each other's life events.
The best parts of this book has to be the friendship between Quinn and Nick, and then the amount of diversity. Quinn and Nick come to understand each other as the novel progresses and I found reading their banter very enjoyable. They had a very positive relationship and I the romance element was hinted at, not delved into, which I think is perfect for a book about high school freshmen.
Quinn and Nick's relationship seemed so much healthier than Quinn and her friend's relationship. I thought that her friend group was kind of a bad influence on her, so I was skeptical of them. Luckily, they never backstabbed her or anything, but I still have my doubts about them.
"How We Roll" features characters in wheelchairs, those with autism, down syndrome, alcoholics and amputees. This book tries to cover an immense amount of topics in such as short amount of time. Therefore, I feel that all of these are skimmed over rather than truly explored minus alopecia. I also found the representation of autism and those who use wheelchairs to be a bit interesting. I'm not sure how much exposure Friend has with these things, but I just felt that the characters were a bit. . . off. I thought a bad example was being made when people constantly touch Nick's wheelchair without asking and that Julius' autistic behaviors seemed rather extreme. I know that some people that rank high on the autistic spectrum do exhibit extreme behaviors, but I feel like his obsessions borderline on something else.
Overall, this book was mostly a sweet read about two kids trying to rediscover themselves after some tumultuous changes in their lives. I liked Quinn and Nick as characters, but I pretty much didn't care about anyone else, which made the story a bit lackluster to me. I appreciate the attempt to make a very diverse cast, but I feel that some issues arose due to this. "How We Roll" isn't terrible, but I took it with a grain of salt.
This book follows a young girl name Quinn who has a autoimmune disorder called alopecia, which causes the hair on her scalp to fall out. Ever since she developed this disorder, she's felt like an outsider. Now, she has a new chance to start over when her family moves to Gull's Head, Massachusetts. There, she meets a young boy named Nick who has lost both of his legs in a terrible snowmobiling accident. Against the odds, these two begin to develop a unique friendship filled with a deep understanding of each other's life events.
The best parts of this book has to be the friendship between Quinn and Nick, and then the amount of diversity. Quinn and Nick come to understand each other as the novel progresses and I found reading their banter very enjoyable. They had a very positive relationship and I the romance element was hinted at, not delved into, which I think is perfect for a book about high school freshmen.
Quinn and Nick's relationship seemed so much healthier than Quinn and her friend's relationship. I thought that her friend group was kind of a bad influence on her, so I was skeptical of them. Luckily, they never backstabbed her or anything, but I still have my doubts about them.
"How We Roll" features characters in wheelchairs, those with autism, down syndrome, alcoholics and amputees. This book tries to cover an immense amount of topics in such as short amount of time. Therefore, I feel that all of these are skimmed over rather than truly explored minus alopecia. I also found the representation of autism and those who use wheelchairs to be a bit interesting. I'm not sure how much exposure Friend has with these things, but I just felt that the characters were a bit. . . off. I thought a bad example was being made when people constantly touch Nick's wheelchair without asking and that Julius' autistic behaviors seemed rather extreme. I know that some people that rank high on the autistic spectrum do exhibit extreme behaviors, but I feel like his obsessions borderline on something else.
Overall, this book was mostly a sweet read about two kids trying to rediscover themselves after some tumultuous changes in their lives. I liked Quinn and Nick as characters, but I pretty much didn't care about anyone else, which made the story a bit lackluster to me. I appreciate the attempt to make a very diverse cast, but I feel that some issues arose due to this. "How We Roll" isn't terrible, but I took it with a grain of salt.